Peter Dinklage on Shaving His Beard, Loving Springsteen & Working with Metallica's James Hetfield

our first guest tonight took home four emys over eight seasons of one of the best TV shows ever now you can see them on the Silver Screen in the new Western the thicket it opens at theaters Friday please say hello to Peter [Music] [Applause] [Applause] Dinklage well how are you Peter hi oh my gosh your face is missing something um the beard the mustache I look like a fat baby or like a pencil eraser or something do you think you now you don't have anything unattractive is what I look like right now I don't think so I disagree I mean I think most of the time guys like by the man who has a beard will have a beard because they don't have a great like chin or like and what but you have like really like almost superhero quality I mean facial hair for me is just about hiding and it's a little difficult for me to hide so I could do what I can uhhuh in order to hide yeah but now people know you from your facial hair so it might be easier to hide without the facial hair oh I didn't think about that did you warn your family that you were going to shave because my dad once shaved his beard and mustache and my sister burst into tears yeah I mean yeah my I'm I'm doing a gig right now now so I changed everything up and uh I said to my seven-year-old son um sorry dad's got to like shave his head and shave his beard and he said if you do that I'm never talking to you again oh he did yeah and uh he was out here visiting me and he was fine he was fine he spoke to you so really his word means nothing cuz there's a pool his word and there's a pool here that he was like fine okay as long as there's a pool pool made up for it everything's cool what did you guys do over the summer did you work over over the summer nothing no nothing that's summers are just fantastic for doing nothing yeah yeah the kids like that they they go to a day camp um and I lie on the couch even better yeah the it's a weird Summers have always been a strange thing I think it's like everybody's gearing up for something that's just not happening and I have a hard time relaxing normally so uh it's it's summers are hard what did you do when you were a kid I know you grew up on the Jersey Shore well back in long time ago these kids going to Camp nowadays I was mowing lawns and uh painting rocks white and uh for real yeah I grew up in New Jersey in the suburbs of New Jersey North Jersey yeah woo wait a minute so they would actually and there was there was a a lady in the neighborhood an octogenarian lady who was lovely lady and uh um I I just painted her rocks white All Summer She hired you or you're just doing it as a prank I think it she thought it was charity maybe I don't know and then then years before I had I didn't never told her but my brother and I and our friends had a um a funeral for all our GI Jo's in in her lawn we went there late at night and had a funeral so I was mowing a lawn on a funeral on a cemetery really uh cuz she was so old we chose her lawn to have our toy uh Cemetery very dark nowadays I feel like I feel like nowadays you get that checked out um psychologically but in the 70s it was fun and what would you spend the money on when you're were a kid when you get paid for something like that gum yeah 31 flavor B Robin right ice cream yeah yeah nice um uh yeah more GI Jo's to bury more GI Jo's yeah yeah kids don't really play with GI Jo's anymore it's kind of a weird thing I guess maybe Barbie's not we love GI Jo and we had but the ones that were like this the big gi Jo's with the Kung Fu Grip yes the evil coneval stunt cycle right were you an evil coneval guy there was only one yeah of course did you know the big the 50th anniversary of evil coneval attempting to jump the Snake River Canyon is this weekend wow yeah wow yeah there was only one now I feel like on YouTube everybody's evil can Evo well yeah trying to be yeah trying to be without the outfit there will never for people who don't know like didn't experience evil can evil there can never be another evil can evil yeah never and the name alone is the greatest and the outfit again it's all about the outfit that's right you um growing up a jersey like were you a big Bruce Springsteen fan as the law requires yeah huge um you cannot not be a big fan of him um and it just works out that he's also a brilliant singer songwriter um but I was born on the New Jersey Shore and actually his manager his first manager when he was a teenager lived next door to us oh wow so he was always in the backyard playing when he was like seven 16 years old Bruce was yeah when I was an infant I heard his music um so somehow it probably hopefully seeped into me I'm not a musician but maybe uh U So when you say he was in the back of your playing you mean you don't mean playing like on the White Rock you pain you mean playing this was this was about uh uh 15 years earlier um when I was an infant oh okay when you were just oh okay so your parents experienced this yeah my mom and dad went to a wedding um reception naturally in the 60s in a surfboard Factory um where Bruce's first band was the band at the wedding not the East Street whatever band he was in at the wedding yeah and we're all big fans but my mom's one note was uh it was really loud I had I had jitis have you ever uh discussed this with Bruce is he aware we hang out all the time I don't know like let me just get this straight All actors want to be rock stars no rock stars want to be actors I don't think that's true like the only people I get like like pee your pants nervous around is rock stars well if I ever met him I've never met him but he's one of the you you never met Bruce no no wow I don't know if I could handle that oh man oh you've met him your old friends yeah of course I've met him I know everybody yeah I'm not even from New Jersey but wait a minute I think what you all know him okay you know what's going on even gyo knows him right G yes yes yeah Bruce you think you're cool until you come and sit here I know that's that's what we we're that's why we're here I met Paul McCartney once though okay that's good that's pretty he's a beetle he is a beetle he's like the beetle yeah Bowie uh uhhuh and that's all right I never met David Bowie so now you're showing off now you said rock stars don't want to be actors but good when we come back from commercial I'm going to use your own work to prove you wrong Dinklage is with us his movie is called the ticket and we'll be right back do you know who I am I don't give a who you are we dug your grave not pay me or what in exactly a fair fight there stugs won't be a fight Bailey that is Peter D in the ticket it opens in theaters Friday I have to tell you this is a a great movie a really you guys did a fantastic job with this one it's based on a book that you yeah discovered well I didn't Discover it it's it's it's it's uh Joe Lansdale wrote the book the thicket and uh about 10 years ago my producing partner and I David Ginsburg we read this book and put the pieces together and it takes a long time to make a movie um and then the pandemic happened we were ready to shoot it in Spain and then that delayed everything and I see so yeah it's worth it was worth the wait though yeah yeah there's some good some really good acting in this particular film yeah that's uh mon Blair and um some guitar player a guitar player from a little band called Metallica James headfield is in the movie which is uh interesting because I think he's done a couple of little things but how did you uh cast James in this in this movie um well it was running around like we we just want to fill it with like incredible faces because Westerns those are hard living people and right they were surviving every each and every day and uh somebody said we should get somebody like that looks like James Hetfield and I just said uh or we get James Hetfield he he you know there's ways and uh I happen to know somebody who knows the drummer Lars uh sure as you do in Hollywood everybody knows and work you work it and uh suddenly I'm zooming with James headfield what's like to call Lars and go Lars we got this movie it's a really great project we've been working on it for a long time we don't want you in it um can we have James's telephone number please yeah that's really rough's like all right God again have you SE nobody likes the drummers have you seen Metallica in concert I did I saw them a couple years ago in Atlanta and holy smokes they are the best oh yeah yeah yeah was that is just a wall of a wall of power and sound like I've never heard live before was like the crew very excited when James showed up to be a part of this yeah but we shot up in Calgary Canada and you know Canadians are known to be the kindest people um that uh like New Yorkers no um um um very patient um but they waited there was like a you could feel the buzz when he arrived but everybody was really nice and they waited and as soon as we were like picture W on James they went make selfies and he was so great did you get the sense at all because James is such a you know besides being a great musician he's such like a big tough guy he's huge yeah did you get the sense that he was nervous at all about I think so but I think when nervous is like what you want to be I I hope he's still nervous when he goes on stage playing that that incredible music because it gives you it gives you something to live for you me you still love doing it you are shooting a movie right now without Al Pacino um does is that some does that make you nervous it did uh the first like for a nanc and because he's so incredible that just goes away and it's just being with another actor who's one of the greatest actors of all time but uh he makes it easy for you to just put that aside how does he do that does he have like a a thing that he does at the begin great Pacino hug and kind words and patience so he talks about work that he's seen that you've done before uh yeah no no it's not about me it's all about like what we're working on and then I just wait for good stories from the old days I see I see I'm very cool about getting the stories are you I tried to be yeah how do you do it tell me the stories out please tell me you know the guy was in The Godfather yeah you like tell me something about or something like uhuh no it's it's do you learn from a guy like that or are you at the point where you really not learn learning anything more because you're so good at this no I'm going to hopefully be learning until I'm his age and Beyond you know it's all about learning you're and making mistakes and and respecting people who have done it longer than you and learning from what you can from them it's you know I kick myself every day on set with somebody like that you know yeah I bet I bet well it's great to see you great to have you here the movie's really really good it's called the thicket it opens in theaters on Friday Peter Dinklage everybody we'll be back with John Legend la